A failure

Back in the autumn of 2020, we saw and enjoyed a odd-ball film (on television) called 'Night train to Lisbon' and on the strength of this I bought a copy of the book from Abebooks. With the cover of this book proclaiming that two million of them had been sold. At - and this is a complete guess - 25p a copy, this makes quite a nice supplement to one's pension - the author being just about of retiring age at the time of the book's publication.

I don't know what the other two million readers made of it, but I could not get on with it at all, never progressing beyond the first two or three chapters. Is it significant that my cheaply produced paperback did not appear to have been read by anyone else?

Checking the biography of the philosophically flavoured author at reference 3, I find that he has had an interesting career, taking an interest in some of the things that I take an interest in. He has, it seems, published a popular book about free will - reference 4 -  but I will never be tested on that one as it does not seem to have been translated into English, or even French, the French perhaps being keener on this sort of thing than we are.

The book will now enter the tub in the garage, the tub which will, in due course, provide fodder for the upcoming Methodists' book fair. For which see reference 6.

PS 1: I might add that while I hold plenty or unread or part read non-fiction, I generally manage to read the fiction that I buy. So this book is an oddity in that regard.

PS 2: question of the day: where exactly does the quote that follows come from?

'We are an organization dedicated to increasing warfighter lethality by training Sailors to be ready and resilient'.

References

Reference 1: Night train to Lisbon - Paul Mercier - 2004.

Reference 2: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1654523/. The film.

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Bieri_(author). The author.

Reference 4: Das Handwerk der Freiheit: Über die Entdeckung des eigenen Willens - Bieri, Peter - 2001.

Reference 5: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/08/free-will-3.html. Some of my own musings on the subject of free will. Which I now hold to be a non-problem. At the very least, a problem which has been solved.

Reference 6: https://www.epsommethodistchurch.org.uk/Groups/354349/Book_Fair.aspx.